Poi Practice

Practice

So, the final days.

Clock in Brussels

row upon row

WW1 trenches, Peeking over the top you could almost touch the German front line

Have been a bit remiss with blogging since Dad died last week.

Have spent the last week immersed in work to help with the feeling of loss.

The AFS day show went very well. 6 year old eh papa was cute, 10 year old baton song was great and Poi with the 12-13 year olds was awesome. I was so busy I didn't get pictures but not to worry.

I managed to fall down the stairs at the homestay so that has left me resting in the Mercure today instead of wandering Paris, hopefully tomorrow I will manage a bit of wandering.

The day at Arras was moving.

Wow, so many needless deaths. In Flanders field, where poppies grow, row upon row. There were 40000 graves that were marked but two empty plots where over 9000 men who were un named were resting. I was moved to tears by the six coffins in the memoriam chamber. We then traveled to Arras where we visited the Trenches they are preserving (Canadian Govt, look after them) You can still see the dips and hollows of bombs and we saw how close the front lines actually were. So sad so many had to die. At Arras, the French have planted many trees, these represent all the lives lost such a moving sight, endless rows of trees growing in the undulations of spent bombs. Apparently they can not let anyone onto the fields because they are still turning up unexploded bombs.

They can not mow the lawns because of this reason also, they have a few sheep to keep the grass down around the monuments. This area was well fought over during the war and is very sacred to the French.

Went to Brussels on Friday, can't say I remember much about it, only that it was beautiful as the students told me it would be.